Twitch broadcasting for PS Vita?

Twitch the popular platform for broadcasting and viewing videogames announced that they will be launching their new Mobile Software Development Kit (SDK). This will allow game developers to enable their iOS and Android games to be broadcasted directly from consumers their mobile devices.

Recently the current Twitch “viewing” app crossed the mark of ten million installs evenly spread across both iOS and Android mobile devices. This shows the popularity of the service among mobile users, even more so because the current app doesn’t allow mobile users to broadcast. With the new Mobile SDK Twitch believes that it can offer game developers/ publishers a powerful tool for their games to become visible across the Twitch platform.

Current situation

At this moment Vita owners who want to share gameplay footage are left empty handed or are at the very least pretty restricted in their options to do so. Natively the Vita doesn’t have any stream/broadcast gameplay options. Many Vita gamers want Sony to release a TV-out solution. The PS Vita TV, which is basically a PS Vita, has this option but would be a very steep purchase if used only to share gameplay. One would still need additional hardware/software to capture the gameplay footage and then there still is the problem that not every Vita game can be played on Vita TV.

I’ve addressed this in articles before but new Vita owners might be wondering how YouTubers are able to provide their audience with crisp gameplay footage.

There is the option to modify the Vita hardware itself. If you don’t know how to handle a solder iron you can send your own vita to be modified or buy a modified system one over at http://www.3dsvideocapture.com/product-list/6

How great this modification might seem to work, I just don’t like the idea of a hole in the body of my Vita. This option also results in a steep purchase for a feature I feel Sony themselves should bring to Vita owners.

Then we have the non-option of off-screen capturing. Believe me it is tedious work to film your Vita’s screen while playing a game. In the end you are left with shaky video and you will need to deal with the glare of the screen, even if you manage to minimalize those factors with off-screen filming your video won’t be of great quality. For instructional purposes where people need to see what you are actually doing with the Vita this works great, but not so much for gameplay.

We also have a tease from Katsu, who supposedly managed to modify the Vita with PS Vita TV parts and effectively giving the PS Vita a TV out function. I’ve reached out to him for more details and will report back to you as soon as I have anything useful to report.

Future feature?

The thing is none of these options would be as easy as a Twitch broadcasting app for Vita similar to what the company aims to deliver for mobile devices. Imagine if Vita game developers/publishers made their games compatible with such an app. Granted the examples of the current situation are primarily for TV-out functionality. I assume there could be latency issues if you used a Twitch broadcast app to view your game session on your TV or PC.

But for a Let’s play purposes where the camera can be set you show your face, external and internal audio capture etc. this would be a great app that could definitely help the discoverability of great Vita games. Sony has expressed their thoughts on the importance of socially sharing videogame experiences; a big part of the PS4’s selling point was/is the share button. I would like to think that if this sharing ability is so important to Sony with the PS4 it should also be important for the PS Vita.

The PS4 already has a good Twitch integration so it is not totally out of the realm of possibilities that a Twitch broadcasting app could find its way to PS Vita. But if we take into account how long it takes for other media apps to surface on the Vita. It might be a very long wait, if ever, before we see a Sony provided way to share Vita gameplay.

Personally I am kind of surprised by the popularity of “let’s play” videos. I myself like to be in control of the game I am experiencing. That’s not to say I’ve never watched a gameplay video but that almost always was to see what a game offered or how to do something that I was unable to figure out by myself. Would you want such an app on Vita? Do you think a Twitch app is technically possible? Show your support for articles by sharing them through social media (Twitter, Google+, Facebook etc.) or by telling your grandmother about what you’ve read. You can weigh in your thoughts in the comment section or contact me directly on twitter @italkgame

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I wasn’t talking about physical buttons, they can add one on LiveArea screen, or the quick settings, (or maybe a button combination, like PS+start, but PS+Select. The idea isn’t that bad, I hope this is the reason why they haven’t released any update yet

The answer is that we don’t know for sure, but it most likely does. All indications are that Sony has some kind of hardware encoder, which is being used to handle capturing videos in the Camera application on the Vita. Furthermore H.264 encoders are commonly found in SGX543 GPUs, so while it’s certainly possible to build an SoC without one, it would be rare.

The catch however is that we don’t know what the hardware encoder is capable of, if it even exists. The Vita’s cameras are only VGA (640×480), which is a lower resolution than the Vita’s screen. If there is an encoder, there’s nothing to indicate whether it’s powerful enough to encoder the Vita’s 960×544 screen at 30fps, since that’s well beyond what it has to do with the cameras right now.

There’s also the issue of system resources. How much CPU time and memory does it consume, keeping in mind that the Vita doesn’t allocate much of either to background programs? And is the video encoder plumbed into the GPU frame buffer/display controller in such a way that it can capture video without significantly interrupting the process? Or would there be a heavy performance penalty in accessing the FB/DC?

All we can say at this point is that it’s possible. We don’t have enough technical details to rule it out, but we also don’t have enough technical details to say it can be done for sure.

I don’t think they meant PSVITA when they said “mobile devices”. And if I remember correctly. People said that PSVITA does not have enough RAM for live streaming in the background while playing a game.

Just releaseeeeee the HDMI cable or whateverrrrrrr That will let me project my vita screen to any screen that’s not vita!! Without extreme price of course I wanna make use of PCH-1000 up scaler already (if i remember correctly PCH-2000 doesn’t have a up scaler so it can’t project screen to anything else)

Well… If the Vita had a ”Twitch-like” app that can make you stream your game while playing… there’d be another problem. It’s true that there’s not enough RAM in this precious little handheld, but before broadcasting, the video would have to be recorded in a Hard Drive (or, in this case, a Vita Card). I don’t know about you, but 32GB of memory isn’t enough for video sharing. So… I think the capturecard and a good PC is the best way to capture a video!

One thing it’s not doing though, is video recording yourself while you play. That option COULD BE (If i am not mistaken) directly in a vita APP. There’s already a camera in the vita so… it could be used to record yourself. But the front camera quality is *** though…

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